ESPN host and podcaster Stephen A. Smith gave a harsh rebuke to the Democratic Party for not taking the blame for President Donald Trump winning the 2024 election.
Smith’s analysis comes months after Trump won 312 electoral votes and the popular vote. Since 2001, the Democratic party has only lost the popular vote twice: once this most recent cycle and again in 2004. Meanwhile, former Vice President Kamala Harris outperformed her predecessor, Joe Biden, in only 58 counties and lost every swing state.
ABC News’s The View co-host Joy Behar attempted to diminish Trump’s win, saying he “won the popular vote by 1.5%, one of the smallest ever, and he won the general election by less than 50%.”
“It is a mandate and I’m going to explain why. I don’t mind the question, but let me be very clear, I’m no supporter of Trump. I’m a supporter of the truth and the facts. The man won every swing state,” Smith said. “He increased in terms of his voter turnout in his favor from the standpoint of blacks, Latinos, and young voters. He increased his numbers from 2020. 89% of the counties shifted to the right. That’s a mandate. We can sit up there and play around all we want to. In 2020, they didn’t — Trump didn’t win the popular vote. He didn’t win the electoral college vote.”
“It’s a different definition of mandate, I guess,” Behar interjected.
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“The problem is that if you’re the Democratic Party and you lost 49.8% to 48.3% and you’re looking at that 1.5% difference, that’s an excuse to say, ‘what we did really wasn’t that bad. We should continue to do that.’ No, don’t continue to do that. Find a new strategy,” Smith went on. “In the end, what it comes down to is this, the American people, in their eyes, it wasn’t about him. They were voting against what the Democrats were throwing in their direction.”
During the November election, 16% of black voters elected Trump over his opponent, former Vice President Kamala Harris. A survey from this year found that Trump has an approval rating of 42% among black men.